


Accidentally commit a hundred crimes with you

by hinatella



Series: yuuri!!! on fire (the superhero au) [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Baby's First Mission, Bad Flirting, Dirty Jokes, Humor, M/M, Rivalry, Swearing, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatella/pseuds/hinatella
Summary: Yuuri quickly learns that some things aren’t as they seem. Namely, one suspicious number that happens to spell something ridiculous on a calculator, and one very reckless Victor Nikiforov.





	Accidentally commit a hundred crimes with you

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of a series! so if you're reading this for the first time, please read the other parts first. this is a direct continuation to part 3.

 

“Hmm…”

“Hmm?”

_“Hmm…”_

“What?”

_“Mmmm…”_

“Yuuri!”

“Mm?” Yuuri says absentmindedly. His head turns to Victor, but his eyes remain cemented to SIB’s holographic screen, clearly engrossed by his search.

He hears Victor speak again. “You keep humming. Does that mean you’ve found something yet?”

Yuuri shakes his head regretfully. “I searched every database in the bank and there’s nothing of interest that comes up when I search the numbers.”

“No villain or hero IDs?”

“No,” Yuuri says dejectedly.

“Phone numbers?”

“Nu uh.”

“Birth dates?”

“I checked that twice.”

A hum sounds near Yuuri’s ear, too close for comfort, and it causes the baby hairs on the back of his neck to rise. He turns, and startles, because Victor is mere inches away with a serious expression that Yuuri isn’t used to seeing on his face, and he’s tapping a finger lightly against his lips as he regards the screen in heavy concentration with icy, blue eyes, and he’s right over Yuuri’s shoulder—

“Um,” Yuuri gulps. “Victor. Please move back a little.”

“Ah, sorry,” Victor says, backing away.

He places his hand under the information screen as a pretense for needing to move, stands from the chair, and starts pacing the length of the lounge to clear his head. It’s odd—something seems different about Victor right now. Just that morning, he’d used that _absurd_ , eye-roll inducing line on the phone, and Yuuri had come into work today with steel-thick skin expecting to deflect any and all of Victor’s flippant, sly attitude but now he’s just...tame.

Weird.

Yuuri still has his reservations, but he thinks that this must be really serious, despite the fact that Victor seems to know as much about these strange, mysterious numbers as Yuuri (which is exactly zero knowledge). Maybe it’s an intuition thing. Victor does seem like the impulsive type.

The door to the lounge opens, and in walks Phichit, hands in the air, eyes _wild_ , and Yuuri knows he’s gearing up for a rant directed at anyone in the room before he even looks to see if anyone is here in the first place.

“You guys would not _believe_ the craziness I just went through! A drunk teen crashes into a corner store with a flower pot on his head, ready to rob it with a fuckin’ _chainsaw_ in _broad daylight_ , and you’d think ‘Oh, Phichit, why would they need a hero to intervene in that?’ Well it turns out—oh, Yuuri? What are you doing on SIB? And why’s Victor here? In a,” he looks Victor up and down, “muscle tee?”

Yuuri has to admit, he is mildly interested in where that mess of a story is headed, but there’s other matters to get to right now. “I started his training today, remember?”

Phichit grins, slow and impish, and crosses his arms over his chest. “How did it go? Did Yuuri kick your ass to the ground?”

“Very much so. I’m fine, though, thanks for asking,” Victor mumbles.

“Anyway, Phichit. Something happened that I’ll have to explain to you later, but do the numbers eight-zero-zero-eight-five mean anything to you? I’ve tried checking the information bank, but nothing notable really comes up.”

Phichit knits his eyebrows together, taps a finger against his cheek as he thinks. “Doesn’t that spell—”

“ _Yes_ , yeah, Chris and I went over that already.”

The other sits on the couch beside Victor and continues humming pensively, and Yuuri begins pacing again while he taps his fingers against the holographic screen.

“Maybe it has nothing to do with the villains at all,” Victor speaks up.

“Hm?” Yuuri says, urging him to continue.

“Perhaps it’s a nondescript, unpersonable thing,” he explains. “If I were to have some string of numbers like this, lying around like some big clue, I definitely wouldn’t want it traced back to me so easily.”

Phichit nods and shrugs concededly. “He has a point. You won’t really find what you’re looking for on SIB in that case.”

Pressing his hand against the screen to dematerialize it, Yuuri looks from Victor to Phichit and back again. “If that’s the case then....we’ll have to go to the Information Sector.” Phichit makes a face that Yuuri _understands_ , but Victor looks confused by that.

“What’s wrong with this Information Sector?”

“They’re...not the most pleasant people to work with. They really hate to be bothered with anything that isn’t vital to their work,” Yuuri explains.

“Considering they’re holed up in cubicles for eight hours, I don’t blame them,” Phichit says. “Oh, but _she’s_ there, and she’d happily help out if you’re the one asking, Yuuri.”

“Who?” Victor asks.

“We’ll see her tomorrow, she’s not in on Thursday’s,” Yuuri replies, which isn’t an answer at all.

“But _who_?”

“The B.A.B.”

“The what?”

✂

“Minako.”

They’re on the third floor right now, where all of the spaces exuding “business formal” lies in all of its stiff beige and cubicle maze and tacky carpeted glory. Yuuri always thought that it smelled that stale coffee and office supplies up here.

The aforementioned woman, Minako, looks up from her computer screen, spins in her chair, and regards Yuuri and Victor with sharp eyes and an immaculately trimmed raised brow. She exudes an aura that reads intimidating. “Yes?”

“I have, um, an unconventional request, and I was wondering if you could help us out?” Yuuri asks. Beside him, Victor is rocking on the balls of his feet.

At the mention of _us_ , Minako’s eye snap to Victor, and he immediately stops rocking. Her gaze is almost invasive, calculating, inscrutable, and Yuuri knows he’d break out in awful sweats had he been on the receiving end of it. Yuuri thinks that Victor must be too, but when he turns to peek, he sees that the ex-villain has this smile on his face and this looks in his eyes like a confused new-born whose attention can’t rest on one thing.

“Yuuri! You never showed me this part of the building in that little tour of ours! It’s a bit stuffy in here, isn’t it?” Victor practically shouts.

Eyes peer over the tops of the cubicles to _glare_ , and, ah, there’s that perplexed sheepishness Yuuri was expecting earlier. Victor steps behind him to escape the knife-sharp stares.

“I didn’t show you because they _really_ don’t like to be bothered,” Yuuri whispers.

“ _This_ is Flash Freeze?” Minako asks then, the callous lines of her face softening. She must have been trying to figure out who Victor is, and the mention of his name gives it away. “I figured you were a looker behind your mask, but I suppose I understand what drunk-off-his-ass Yuuri was gushing about when—”

 _“Minako!”_ Yuuri whisper-yells, eyes wide, mortified and scandalized.

“Gushing about?” Victor grins, all self-satisfied in that _dumb,_ sly way.

“ _No_ ,” Yuuri quickly dismisses. “Minako, please, this is urgent—kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“It’s, well. We have no idea what this is suppose to mean,” Yuuri says, producing the crumpled piece of paper in his hand, where he’d scrawled the numbers down. He hands it over to Minako. “You’ve heard about Victor’s wiped memories, right?”

Minako nods and analyzes the five numbers and tiny drawing beside them with sincerity. “That piece of information was added to the company’s digital files, of course I have.”

Victor chimes in. “Do you think you can figure out what those numbers might mean? Ms…”

“Please just call me Minako. I don’t want to sound old.”

“But you’re—”

Yuuri doesn’t finish that sentence because Minako points a steely glare at him that effectively pins his mouth shut. “Say one more word and I’ll spill about that _thing_.” Yuuri raises his hands in a placating gesture, and Minako nods in satisfaction. “Alright,” she says, turning in her seat. “I’m assuming you’re both here because you’ve attempted to look for answers yourself, correct?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says at the same time Victor answers, “Right.”

“Hm…” Minako hums, bringing up some software Yuuri doesn’t understand and tapping away at the screen with insane speed, akin to that one hacker meme Phichit showed him a few years ago. He watches as a big list of things pop up all at once, refreshes, and gradually shrink in size. “Considering Victor is based in this city—we have the address of your old residence on file too—we can assume that that code is linked to something here...oh.”

“Oh?” Yuuri mimics, looking over her shoulder. Victor does the same.

“It’s the address of a photography business, but those numbers belonged to the warehouse that was previously residing there. Interesting....”

“What does that mean? Is there something there?” Yuuri asks, directing the question to Victor.

“I don’t know but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s important,” Victor says, equivocal as ever, and Yuuri can’t shake _his_ feeling of being apprehensive about this whole thing.

Minako raises her eyebrows. “Are you two planning to check this out for yourselves?”

“ _We’re_ not,” Yuuri says—Victor visibly deflates beside him— “but I can. My schedule is clear today.”

“Wait!” Victor shouts again, the glares happen _again_ , and Yuuri mentally notes to tell Victor off for it later. He grabs Yuuri’s shoulders, grips tight. “Let me go too! You can’t just go alone. What if it’s a trap?”

“You’re sending me into a _trap_?”

“ _No_ —Yuuri! That’s not the point.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve handled a bunch of missions on my own and this won’t be any different.” Yuuri doesn’t mention the fact that the circumstances here are actually different, and a bit unorthodox, because he’s never done _this_ , dive headfirst into a problem that he’s not very sure is a problem in the first place.

But something about the resolute hold Victor has on his shoulders, the worried knit of his eyebrows, the unsmiling line of his lips, the imploring gaze of his eyes, causes this unfamiliar, inexplicable flip in his chest, and (wow why is he so _close_ )—

Minako clears her throat.

Yuuri takes one hundred steps back. (It’s only, like, two. But it feels like an ocean away.)

He fixes the wrinkles of his shirt and pointedly looks anywhere but the two in front of him. “Even if I let you come, you aren’t ready. Your costume request hasn’t been placed yet and your hero alias hasn’t been finalized.”

“No one needs to know!”

“I’m pretty sure this entire _room_ knows, Victor. You aren’t exactly great at whispering,” Minako points out. And it’s true, because the room is quiet, as though all of its patrons have simultaneously decided to stop typing to listen.

Yuuri forlornly presses his face into his hands.

“Well...since some people know, what else do we have to lose?” Victor says.

 _My sanity,_ is what Yuuri says in his head. “My _job_ ,” is what Yuuri whispers out loud. “This is way out of line already. I can’t possibly bring you along when I’m meant to be looking after you and you’re _not ready_. Not to mention the fact that we aren’t well equipped for this since it isn’t an official mission.”

“Oh, stop with this already. I’ll help you guys out! No need to pester me about it!” Minako interjects in a sing-song-whispery voice

“But we weren’t—”

“You’ll owe me a solid, Yuuri,” Minako winks. Yuuri is only a little scared.

“But we can’t send Victor out without a costume.”

“So use an old one from the department. You know, the ones mentees usually borrow. And don’t worry, I’ll make certain no one here,” Minako sweeps her eyes over the room, and the rhythmic _tap thump tap_ of fingers against screens continue, “says anything. I am the head after all.”

“Oh!” Victor gasps excitedly. “The head! How rude of me to not introduce myself properly.”

Minako waves her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, no need to be so formal.”

She stands, suddenly grabs Victor by the collar of his shirt, and _pulls_ him into a hug. Victor looks thoroughly confused, eyes wildly searching Yuuri’s face like the answer he’s looking for is etched onto his cheek, and Yuuri is trying very hard to muffle his laughter behind his hand.

When she finally pulls away, Victor _gawks._ “It’s...nice to meet you too?”

“It’s nothing personal. I’ll know your exact whereabouts for the next few hours this way,” Minako turns Victor by his shoulders, grabs Yuuri too, and pushes them towards the door. “Now hurry, before it runs out!”

✂

“Now remember,” Yuuri begins, slipping on his elbow length gloves. “We’re in and out if we can help it.”

“In and out you say…” Victor interjects under his breath, because of course he would.

“ _So_ ,” Yuuri pointedly ignores. “We need to be as quick and efficient as possible. That also means not speaking to anyone, which is ideal for us because we really can’t afford to when you’re not an official hero yet. Minako says the business there is closed right now, so we should be able to slip in without a problem,” he runs his hands through his slicked back hair. “The previous blueprints showed an entire underground basement system, so we’ll have to get in there somehow, then we can begin our mission.”

Victor raises a gloved hand. His borrowed suit is an ill-fitted, bright blue thing, and he keeps squirming in it.

“Yes, Victor?”

“How will I be addressed the entire time to preserve my identity if I can’t use my hero alias yet?”

Yuuri puts his mask on and crosses his arms as he thinks. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to worry about that. But you’re right, maybe it’ll be smart to.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“Daddy.”

Yuuri makes a face. “No.”

“Honey.”

“ _Victor_.”

“Eagle One.”

“Do you want to to do this or not?” Yuuri huffs, hoping that the mask is sufficient enough to cover the red on his face.

“Right,” Victor grins. “Sorry.”

“Follow me,” Yuuri says.

They walk the short corridor that leads to the HOLE, where the giant overhead dome roof filters in a stream of sunlight; it’s bright and blue and sunny outside. Yuuri moves towards one end, adjacent to the transparent Ion Glass window, where a row of two wheeled vehicles are lined up beside one wall. He grabs two helmets from the nearby hooks and tosses one to Victor, and Victor looks positively _giddy_. Yuuri wants to ask, but he knows he’ll regret it.

He straddles one of the hoverbikes and gestures for Victor to join him and then it hits him.

Oh.

Oh, _great_.

He should’ve thought this _through, oh_ —

Helmet firmly in place, Victor plops on right behind him. “I’m ready. Let’s go, Yuuri.”

“You should,” Yuuri takes a moment to clear the nerves that are clinging to his throat and constricting his airways. Ridiculous. This is ridiculous, he’s a professional. “Address me as my hero name when we’re in full costume.”

“Right. Apologize, Cindere—Cinderos.”

Yuuri presses a button on the handle of the bike, and the exit door slides open. Then he steels his mind, takes a deep breath, and says, “P...put your arms around me.”

He feels Victor tense up behind him. Odd.

“What?”

“There’s no seatbelts, so…”

“...Right,” Victor replies, and with a tentativeness Yuuri isn’t expecting at all, slips his arms snug around his torso. Yuuri finally releases the air from his lungs, but it comes out a bit wobbly.

Without another word, Yuuri starts the engine, flips a switch, and uses his body to tilt the bike up; it shifts jerkily in the air (like he’s riding for the first time, which is, _oh, ridiculous_ ). He tightens his grip on the handles, tells himself _get a grip, get a grip_ , and soars out of the door and through the open air.

✂

They arrive in a business district that’s fairly busy on this Friday afternoon. Yuuri lands the hoverbike behind the building so they don’t risk being seen. Victor complains about the fact that that happens to be right next to a trash heap.

Yuuri pulls two small microphone pieces from the pocket of his pants and hands one to Victor. “Minako will be directing us through this the best she can, and we can communicate to each other in the off chance that we’re separated,” he explains. He turns it on before placing it in his ear. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

 _“You’re crystal clear,”_ Minako responds.

“So what’s the plan right now? How do we find an entrance to this so-called underground maze?” Victor asks her.

_“I can’t help you there. The blueprints are outdated, so you’ll have to figure that out yourselves.”_

“Well we can’t just parade in there during closed hours. There’s probably alarms here,” Yuuri says.

 _“I_ could _hack into the alarm system, but…”_

“Do you have a radio? Or anything with a wireless frequency,” Victor asks. When Yuuri hesitantly nods to the hoverbike, he continues, “then allow me.”

Yuuri watches as Victor walks to the bike, conjures a thin stick of ice from thin air, and begins taking apart the control panel and messing the tangle of wires, and Yuuri is suddenly very aware of how terrible all of this looks.

“What are you doing?” Yuuri asks.

“Jamming the alarm’s wireless frequency so we’re not detected.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

“Aaaand…done,” Victor announces after fidgeting with the knobs and switches.

There’s a whistle in his ear. _“Nice work, Nikiforov.”_

Yuuri tilts his head. “How do you know?”

“Trust me, I know,” he answers vaguely.

Yuuri would rather not take his word for it, but he hasn’t got much of a choice, so he carefully saunters towards the back door of the building while Victor walks next to him, and the ex-villain watches, beyond amused, as Yuuri quickly taps the door knob and pulls away again a few times in quick succession.

Without so much as a warning, Victor probes the door knob with a makeshift key he makes from his ice, and Yuuri hardly has time to bolt. Not that he has to, because the door swings open without a sound. His mouth makes a little _o_ as he stares reverently up at Victor.

“That was…” _Impressive_. “Bad. This is so bad. Oh, my god. We’re committing a crime. Oh, my _god—_ ”

Victor presses a finger to his lips, a too-confident smile on his own. “Relax, Cinderos. We won’t get caught.”

“We’re _breaking and entering!”_ Yuuri mouths hysterically. He’s full of sudden nerves he hasn’t felt since his hero-in-training days because the realization is dawning on him that this is quite possibly the dumbest thing he’s ever done, second only to the time he accidentally drunk texted Mr. Feltsman pictures of his dog. Oh, no, Mr. Feltsman will kick his ass if he finds out…

Victor pulls him out of his near inevitably descent into panic when he speaks again. “Come on, the sooner we finish, the sooner we can leave.”’

“Right,” Yuuri breathes. He speaks loudly so Minako hears, “Do you know where the door to the underground area might be?”

_“Somewhere in the eastern part of the building, probably. The blueprints show a set of stairs there. Be careful you two.”_

They step through the threshold—Yuuri toeing the line like he’s about to step right into a minefield—and start surveying the interior. It’s definitely a photography business; there’s example frames along the walls and a room of props and curtains and camera equipment and—

“Puppies!” Victor runs towards the large pictures stacked and standing against one wall. “And kittens! This must be a pet photography place! Oh, look at this one, Yuuri, look at how cute they are!”

Yuuri tenses up on instinct, because Victor is being _loud_ and unabashed and using his name while they’re in costume and everything about this is wrong and way, way out of line and _they should consider turning back now_ —

(But a smaller, quieter, more calm voice in his head is telling him how cute that was.)

_(But this is hardly the time to melt and go weak at the knees.)_

“Focus!” he whisper-shouts.

“Oh! Sorry.” Victor has the gall to look flustered as he clears his throat. “Secret door. Yes. Right.”

It takes a total of six minutes to find it, trapped underneath the layer of carpeting on the floor. When they carefully lift up the trapdoor they find underneath that, they’re greeted by a set of stairs that lead down to darkness, darkness, and more damp, suffocating darkness.

“You can stay right behind me,” Yuuri says. He lifts a hand and ignites a small fire in his palm. “I’ll light the way.”

Minako wasn’t exaggerating when she’d mentioned this place would be a maze. It’s a winding labyrinth of old concrete walls and red, rusted steel, it’s damp, with leaks dripping into untouched puddles, and, worst of all, it’s filled with cobwebs. Yuuri prays he doesn’t come face to face with a spider because he _will_ scream, and Minako’s poor ears doesn’t deserve that (and Victor doesn’t need to bare witness to it, either). There’s also this poignant, near intoxicating smell that’s permeating his nose in an awful way.

_“Turn right once you reach the end of this corridor.”_

“This feels a lot larger than normal, doesn’t it?” Victor muses beside him. He has an arm crossed over his chest and a finger pressed against his lips in thought.

_“The aboveground infrastructure was completely torn down and rebuilt directly over this. Nothing should stray from these floorplans though.”_

“But still, something feels...off.”

“I get what you mean,” Yuuri says. “It’s like having a thousand versions of Neuroseeker screwing with your mind.”

“Or a hundred copies of Yakov glaring at your back.”

Yuuri nods solemnly.

_“Well. I sense no activity around your immediate area right now. Turn left.”_

“Cinderos,” Victor points at his lit hand, “may I?”

Yuuri nods absently; his eyes are darting around the damp air. It’s eery here. Ghost stories level eery.

He yelps a little when Victor grabs his wrist and uses his fire to light different corners of the narrow hall they’re standing in, and the flustered nerves coiling in his stomach causes the fire to burn brighter. “Look. There’s cobwebs but no spiders. Leaks and no exposed pipes, and I’m pretty sure the building aboveground doesn’t show signs of distressed flooring.”

Yuuri squints his eyes, steps close to the walls, examines them with skepticisms. “And everything looks the same…” He tugs his right hand away from Victor’s grasp and looks over his shoulder to tell him, “Step back.” With the flex of his fingers, he ignites his left hand, _claps_ his hands together, and uses the expanded flame to blast through the wall.

There’s smoke. Wheezing coughs from behind.

And the sizzling sound of a HoloSystem malfunctioning.

When the smoke finally clears, they’re met with the sight of exposed wooden and metal bars and lattice framework.

“Whoa,” Victor whistles.

_“Someone rebuilt the entire thing using a hologram?!”_

Yuuri nods, like Minako can somehow see. And, ah, right. She technically can. “I guess we were right in coming here if someone went through all this trouble to hide this…”

He relights his fire, and they progress into the dilapidated basement, ducking their heads underneath detached debris and stepping over upturned concrete blocks and long forgotten pieces of furniture. The only sound filling Yuuri’s ear is the _drip drip drip_ of water.

And Victor grumbling quietly about his borrowed costume.

“—incredibly lame. I can’t believe this is my first real mission as a hero—”

“—not a real mission, and you’re not a real hero yet,” Yuuri interjects.

“—and I’m not even dressed properly. These colors are quite literally _atrocious_ , and it doesn’t even have a _cape_.”

Yuuri rounds on him, accidentally burning his flame a little too close to Victor face, and Victor startles. “Sorry. But not all heroes wear capes.”

Victor gapes, then smiles, bright and brilliant, as a hand presses against his chest. “Aw, Cinderos, you really think that?”

“What?” Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “No, you cabbage, I mean capes are a really, really bad idea. Haven’t you seen The Incredibles? Do you want to meet your untimely demise?”

Victor raises his eyebrows now, and there’s laughter on the tip of his tongue. “You’re using an animated movie as a basis for real life fashion decisions?” Then he purses his lips. “Did you just call me a cabbage?”

Yuuri turns around to continue walking again before he mumbles, “It’s a good movie, okay? It captures my daily struggle pretty well I think.”

The laughter spills this time. “That is unfairly cute.”

His flame burns brighter. “It’s just a _movie_.”

A hand on his shoulder stops him from going any further; Yuuri illuminates Victor’s face, and spots the most severe expression he’s ever seen on the other. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Shh.”

Yuuri stands stock-still and strains his ears to hear _something_ —

A...whimper?

Their eyes simultaneously widen.

 _“I’m sensing some movement to your right,”_ Minako belatedly warns.

Before Yuuri can say anything, Victor is grabbing his wrist again, and they reach their destination in no time. Only, it’s a dead end filled with a neat row of metal bears. But the whimpering is louder, more pronounced.

“Is this another holofield?” Yuuri touches a hand to the bars. No, definitely real.

Victor is shuffling his hands frantically against the bars, uses Yuuri fire and the hold he still has on his wrist to light the area, and gasps when he finds a keypad. “It’s password protected! We need to get in _now_.”

“Be patient, we’ll—”

“Cinderos, this is a matter of death and death.”

_“I don’t think I’d be able to bypass this. There’s nothing in the system that indicates the basement level having a security system.”_

“Can we try guessing it?”

_“Cinderos, there’s at least seven digits in that code. I don’t think that’s possible. I mean, unless you’re willing to sit there for a few hours.”_

“Minako,” Victor cuts in, inspecting the keypad. “Do you know words you can write on a standard scientific calculator?”

_“Hm. I’m not in middle school, Victor.”_

“Don’t take that the wrong way! I’ve got a feeling about this.”

And so, they spend the next twenty minutes trying codes that Minako rattles off in his ear. Victor seems unusually eager to get behind the bars, but Yuuri can’t understand why; the space behind it is filled with darkness and, surprisingly, more bars. He blinks once, activates his infrared vision, but no warm colors turns up. Whoever, or whatever, is there must be concealed.

_“Eight-five-five-four-zero-one-three.”_

“No.”

_“Eight-zero-zero-eight-seven-three-five-five.”_

“No.”

_“One-five-three-three-seven-three-six-five.”_

A sigh. “No.”

“Okay, this clearly isn’t working,” Yuuri says in exasperation. They’ve been on this questionable mission for over two hours now. Probably. The weird smell is getting to him, and he’d like to go home. But the whimpering is growing desperate, and Victor is growing desperate, and Yuuri can’t say no when there’s danger he knows he can help with.

“A few more tries. I get the feeling we’re close.”

_“One-one-three-four-two-zero-six.”_

“I don’t know, you’ve tried so many already. We should consider a different option. Maybe come back later and—”

A beep, and a click, and the bars shift open.

Oh.

_“That spelt ‘go to hell’.”_

Victor huffs in amusement. “Someone must really hate me.”

Yuuri blinks, dumbfounded. “What?”

He has no time to sit here and ponder that that just happened, because Victor is sprinting inside and heaving a heavy metal door open and he _squeals with delight_ and there’s the sound of hyperreal barking.

Wait.

Barking?

“Ooh, I’m the world’s worst parent! I can’t believe I forgot about you, I swear I didn’t mean to!”

_“Is...is that a…”_

Yuuri is as confused as Minako as he steps carefully into the room. And yes, there it is: Victor coddling the biggest poddle Yuuri has ever laid eyes on. Of course he’d have a pet poodle. _Of course._

“We came all this way...for a dog?” Yuuri says slowly; he’s in this constant state of bewilderment that won’t go away. He feels like he should be upset or something, but it’s all misplaced confusion. “You said this was a matter of life and death.”

“Yes!” Victor says, trying to turn away from his dog’s attacking tongue. “A matter of the life and death of my happiness.” He returns to petting his pet’s fluffy, brown fur. “Who’s a good girl? You are! You waited so long!”

Yuuri buries his face in his hands.

And _screams_.

A set of paws patter on the floor in approach, and a pair of legs land on his torso, and Yuuri is suddenly laying on the cold, damp ground and being mercilessly _covered_ in dog slobber. He squirms and squeals and attempts to cover his face, and the tight knots of his expression are tugged apart as he openly laughs. “Ah! Tell her to stop!”

“Makkachin!” Victor pats his knees and whistles to get her attention, and Yuuri heaves in a breath of stale air.

He wants to be upset, but he really can’t bring himself to be when Victor has the largest smile on his face right now, paired with clear laughter that painfully pulls at Yuuri's chest.

“Okay,” Yuuri sighs in defeat as he stands. “Let’s go. The smell in here is starting to get unbearable.”

Yuuri raises a hand to spark his fire again—Victor’s eyes widen, his mouth is moving around the word _“Stop”_ —Yuuri has no time to register it.

There’s fire everywhere. A sudden roaring inferno.

Yuuri startles, steps back, and trips right over Victor’s frame and onto the ground.

“Ow, _fuck_.”

_“What’s happening?! I can’t sense anything anymore!”_

“There was gasoline in the air,” Victor coughs into his hand. He holds Makkachin close to protect her.

Yuuri presses his eyes shut, and cries, “God, _fuck_ , I’m so sorry, I should’ve known, but I was distracted.”

“It’s fine, Cinderos. Really. Can you put the fire out?”

Yuuri somberly shakes his head. “Once it’s out of my hands, it’s out of my control. I can walk through this, but you two probably can’t. The best I can do is attempt to suppress it while you go through.”

“Hold on,” Victor hops to his feet. Makkachin doesn’t move from her place; the poor thing is cowering in the corner in fear. “I’ve got a plan. Suppress as much as you can, and I’ll use whatever oxygen is still in the air to power my ice to create a pathway to the stairs.”

Yuuri nods and immediately moves into action. He jumps into the flames, takes a deep, _gross_ , breath in, holds out the palms of his hands, and places as much of his focus as he can on controlling it. He’s sweating, it _stings,_ and the threads of his thin costume feel like they’re being pulled apart.

The fire parts as a layer of ice emerges beneath his feet, spreading far into the interior of the basement. Victor is struggling to hold up his fluffball of a dog in his arms as he ungracefully glides along the icy surface, and Yuuri feels like a newborn fawn as he tries to do the same. They reach the stairs just as the fire melts the ice away, then they’re running out into the photography studio—and, oh, it’s up in fires too, oh, _no_ —and they barely step a foot outside before the entire building collapses with a thunderous crash behind them.

Yuuri is desperately catching his breath.

Beside him, Victor is _wheezing._

They lock eyes.

And burst with hysteric cackling.

“That was insane!” Victor shouts.

“I know!” Yuuri agrees.

“We really did that!”

“I know!” Yuuri laughs.

He faintly hears the panicked yells of Minako in his ear, but the heart-stopping adrenaline pounding in his veins is overpowering her voice.

“Let’s go before witnesses arrive,” Yuuri says, heading for the hoverbike. Victor doesn’t move. Yuuri is about to question him, but then the pounding in his ears clear and he suddenly hears it.

_Reporters._

_Shit._

“ —I’m on the scene of what appears to have been an explosion. Sources say an unnamed villain was here a few minutes prior and seen exiting the building. And, oh! Cinderos is here! The SUCC organization's top hero is standing next to someone...another hero? And he has a dog? They’ve rescued a dog from the explosion!”

“Victor....” Yuuri whispers, clutching one hand on the bike’s handles and another around Victor’s free hand. “Don’t say a _word_. Let’s go. _Now_.”

He hops onto the bike, flips the switch to start it.

But it doesn’t start.

“Victor, what did you _do_.”

“It’s an easy fix, let me just—”

The small entourage of reporters are hauling ass towards them when Victor switches place with him on the bike to fix the control panel. Yuuri is starting to panic again, and the giant dog on his lap licking his cheeks in gratitude really isn’t helping.

“Excuse me! Cinderos! If we can just have a word!”

“Got it!” Victor beams. And, _yes_ , the engine hums to life beneath them.

“Sorry!” Yuuri says. “We’re in a hurry!”

Victor hovers them in the air. Yes, yes, yes, they’ll get out of this scotch free, this is _unbelievable._

“Sir! Are you a new hero? What’s your name?”

Victor doesn’t drive away like he should, because Victor isn’t a sensible hero that listens to rules. The jerk flashes a smile to the plethora of cameras pointed at him, waves a hand, and says, _“Cryo Frost!”_

 

The hover ride is silent.

Yuuri spends half of it glaring at Victor’s back and fuming. If he’s lucky, he’ll develop the power of laser eyes and burn a hole straight through his dumb body.

“Sorry,” Victor says a little later. Yuuri turns his glare to the back of his head.

“ _Sorry?_ You just did exactly what I told you not to do! Do you have any idea what will happen?!”

“I’ll be famous?”

“You aren’t even a full-fledged hero yet! Mr. Feltsman will hear about this for sure! We’re fucked!”

“It’ll be fine. It’s not like we did this for nothing. Makkachin is safe now,” Victor says, and his voice is dripping tooth-rotting genuinity. Yuuri can’t even be mad. Ugh.

He clutches Makkachin, who’s sitting precariously in his lap, and hums in resignation into her soft fur. “We practically committed crime, regardless of what the media says.”

Victor laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all week. “Cinderos, I’d accidentally commit a hundred more crimes with you if it meant saving every dog on this damned planet.”

Yuuri snorts, then giggles into his hand, then _laughs_ uncontrollably at the absurdity of that statement and the absurdity of this whole situation and the absurdity of the fact that his heart is doing wild roller coaster loops in his chest and he can’t phantom why.

Phichit will lose his damn mind when Yuuri tells him about this.

✂

“ _Da._ ”

A red, manicured fingernail taps against the head of the silk upholstery of the couch. It’s a hideous thing, burgundy and gold and reeking of faux-bourgeois appeal.

“Yes, the dog was taken.”

The inside of her ears _pop_ , and she senses a presence behind her closed door. No matter how many times that happens, she’ll never get used the feeling of pressure that occurs right before Shadow Knight appears in that warped flurry of shadows.

“Ah,” she says into the receiver. “Here he comes.”

She fades like a chameleon right before the doors burst open, and the man in purple attire and gaudy eyeshadow glares directly through her.

“Nice try, Scarlet, I can see the phone in your hand,” he grumbles.

“We talk later,” Scarlet Mask addresses the person on the line, then to Royal MF, “Aw, why so upset?”

“You didn’t tell me you spilled gasoline all over the basement! I could’ve died!”

Scarlet shifts to her opaque skin again and smiles into her hand when she takes in his appearance: frazzled, singed, and charred at the edges. It’s quite funny.

“It’s not funny!”

“Sorry, but hey! It all worked out, yes? I even let you pick the key code this time too, even though it’s about as ridiculous as your alias, Royal Mother Fucker.”

Royal MF sighs and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I already have to hear that from Neurosucker. I don’t need it from you too.”

Scarlet is trying very hard, and failing very miserably, to keep her amusement contained. “Neurosucker? That’s cute.”

“Shut _up_.”

“Cheer up, Georgi,” she swings up from her laxed position, crossing one leg over the other, and clutches the edge of plush cushions with her hands. Her sea blue eyes glisten with pure delight. “Phase one is finally complete. Let’s celebrate with alcohol!”

✦

**Author's Note:**

> god, this chapter was super fun to write and it's probably one of my faves so far.
> 
> if anyone whats to know what those numbers mean in order of appearance, they are: asshole, boobless, and iseelegs (my personal fave lmao)
> 
> so, a couple things i want to announce:  
> 1\. i'm currently looking for a beta reader! i'm constantly hopping around and looking for people who can beta read my fics, and that usually means asking friends, but they're busy sometimes and it doesn't always work out. and lemme tell yall, i'm awful at catching my own mistakes, so betas are always a big help. if anyone is interested at all, please send an ask on tumblr at [hinatella](http://hinatella.tumblr.com/), and we can talk! i'd be super super grateful!!  
> EDIT: i've gotten 2 people to help and i'm no longer in need of a beta reader!
> 
> 2\. next installment will be a sort of intermission one shot, set two years before to the current timeline, around the time yuuri and victor met. and i'm thinking of doing more of these intermission type things every few oneshot with focuses on other characters (like yuri p., phichit, the other villains etc etc) and different side stories (tbd). they'll be very fun to work on, i think
> 
> also, and this has nothing to do with anything really, but i've finally found a way to post without all that spacing in between lines and i'm so so happy about that!! one of these days i'll go back and fix the first three oneshots...
> 
> thanks to [quantumgravity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumgravity/pseuds/quantumgravity) for beta reading this time, catch me on twitter [@hinatella](http://twitter.com/hinatella), and i hope yall enjoyed reading this as much as i did writing it!


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